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Chapter 89

last update Last Updated: 2024-12-25 13:07:27

ZARA'S POV

Thick tension filled this small café where Michael and Jacob sat opposite me at the corner table with grimness twisting faces, thoughts whirring internally. It had been quite a weighty last 24 hours, and with every more passing moment, terror has not stopped growing inside. Kai had them cornered-but he couldn't win.

I drummed my fingers on the table, fighting to tie myself back. My mind wove an endless cycle of images: my son's innocent face, his safety.

"We need to move fast," Michael finally said, slicing through my spiraling thoughts. "Kai's got the upper hand right now, but that doesn't mean we can't turn the tide."

Jacob leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. Anger shadowed across his face. "You are right, but we need a bit more than accusations, man. We need something to bring him down-hell, something concrete."

I nodded, much steadier than I thought my voice was. "Kai survives on control. If he knows he's being made for what he truly is, he won't be in any po
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  • MARRIAGE PACT   Chapter 95

    Zara's POV I peer into the mirror, and the image staring back shows only an empty shell of the girl that once used to be. Michael's dead, and here I am in this mansion, caught by that very man who ruined my life. Every thought about him, Kai, grasps my heart with a fit of anger. But still, he presses on: he wants me to forget Michael, learn to cope with this kind of life-the twisted reality-to be his wife every waking day."Zara," his voice floats into the room deep and insistent. "Come out here. We need to talk."I didn't move. Not an inch. His commands mean absolutely nothing to me. Not anymore.The sound of his footsteps drew closer and I shrink further into the corner, knowing well how pathetic it sounded but quite beyond my control. A man who had taken away everything that mattered from me was master over this house. Well, today was different; at least he wasn't getting that satisfaction. The door creaked open."You can hide in here all you want, but you're never going to escape

  • MARRIAGE PACT   Chapter 94

    ZARA'S POVI sat on my bed by the window, and the raindrops falling against the panes coursed down in rivulets without sound-a reflection of the void inside my soul. There lay my son, sleeping still peacefully on the bed, curled up into a small bundle, his steady breathing the only sound in my room. For an instant, at the sight of him, all was well again, but pretty soon my reality confronted me.A knock shattered the fragile silence."Ms Zara," Madam Tess's voice was indistinct from the other side. There was something odd in her tone, like hesitation, even fear.Slowly, I rose, quickening at the pulse. Opening the door, I found her standing there, clutching a folded piece of paper in her shaking hands."What is it?" I asked, a knot already forming in my stomach.It's. It's a message," she breathed over her shoulder, eyes wide in that wild, frantic way. "From jacob."I plucked the paper from her shaking fingers, mine shaking too as I unrolled it. The words were a real kick in the guts

  • MARRIAGE PACT   Chapter 93

    ZARA'S POV For the past three years, I'd been telling myself-lying to myself, actually-I would never pass through those doors. Well, here I was at Kai's mansion gate with one heart in the rib, walking like gazelles all full and weighing in this huge over-reined guilt.The smell of polished wood and a touch of cologne wafted in as the heavy door now groaned open, while Madam Tess stood in the hall, her face alight with so much welcome just like always. "Madam Zara, you have returned!" she exclaimed in a voice that shook.I gave her no thought, strode right past her, as if she had never been, never broke my stride, my headset with one thing on my mind and one only, my son.Where is he?" I demanded ice with growing venom while whirling back a few feet to see Kai with dancing dark eyes and relishing the success.“Sleeping," growled gruff and small with curving lips ending into a smirk. "Welcome home, Zara.""It is not my home," I snapped.Kai's smirk grew. "Oh, but it is. Legally, nothi

  • MARRIAGE PACT   Chapter 92

    Zara's POVThe shrill buzz of my ringing phone pulled me from my reverie. I had sat in my office, staring rather blankly at the papers on my desk, unable to focus on anything. When I glanced at the screen, the headline flashing across it stole the breath from my lungs: Jacob Donovan Arrested for Attempted Murder of Mr. Klein.I shook my head, hardly able to say the word. "No," I whispered, shaking it now as if that somehow was going to make this vanish. My hands had some kind of tremor when I unfolded the article to read it. And damned if the accusations weren't-wild, depicting Jacob as an avenging business that finally snapped under all those pressures.A wave of nausea rolled over me. It wasn't a Jacob attack; it was personal.I banged my phone down and leaned back in my chair, racing my mind. One didn't have to be a genius to know behind whom this was-Kai. It had his fingerprints all over it. Jacob had been my rock, my ally in this war against him, and sat now behind bars for somet

  • MARRIAGE PACT   Chapter 91

    ZARA'S POVI sat at Hartmann's Enterprise, in my office, staring aimlessly at the screen of my computer. The numbers all seemed blurred together, the reports dim and far away. The only thing my mind replayed was the sound of the judge's ruling, the image of Kai walking out of the courtroom-smug-with my son in his arms. With every passing moment, the weight in my chest crushed me from the inside out.A soft rap at the door sliced through my fog. "Ms. White, you have a new message," my assistant Lily said in a faltering voice and laid an envelope on my desk before wheeling around to beat a swift retreat.I frowned at the plain white envelope. There was something about it that was … not quite right. I opened it, shaking, and pulled out a single sheet of paper.*Come home, Zara. You have to be with me and our son. Don't compel me to do something we'll both regret later on. Tell Michael to leave the matter alone- or he may not live any longer.*Those words sent a shiver down my spine. The

  • MARRIAGE PACT   Chapter 90

    ZARA'S POVThat was one heavy courtroom; I could feel it, a weight palpable upon the air. Seated beside the plaintiff's table, clutching the photo of my son tightly between my clasped hands, every beat of my heart seemed to feel this invisible vice squeezing tight. Across the room, Kai sat oozing smug confidence: the expensive suit, cool, calm demeanor molding him into every inch of the untouchable mogul he wanted the world to think he was."Ready?" Michael whispered beside me, his hand light on my arm.I nodded, but by now my stomach had started to do its wildest churning ever. "I have to be," I whispered low, "for my son."In strode the judge, and to his presence as one single body rose the courtroom. "All rise," cut through the silence of the voice of the bailiff.We sat in a chair as the trial began and stood up to address the court with that gloss of refinement only money can provide."My client, Mr. Kai Adler, is here for safety and welfare for his son," he began, "He has testif

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